New Taurus model may be future blueprint

NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -The development of the 2004 racing model of the Ford Taurus not only represents a collective effort, it may prove to be the blueprint for the rest of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.

The new version, which has a different front and rear bumper area from last year's model, was developed with input by every Ford team, said Robin Pemberton, the car company's field manager. And now that every Ford engine will be built at Robert Yates Racing, the collaborative effort may become standard.

Ford officials, perhaps sensing a group effort may be needed to fend off Toyota's willingness to use unlimited resources if the Japanese car company decided to expand its presence to stock cars.

"A lot of times you can build a car that just suits one team's purpose," Pemberton said. "I think the last couple times we had Penske doing one version, Yates doing one and Roush doing one. During that ('98) project (when Yates helped design a new car), NASCAR would cut templates off of cars and they were different cars that were constructed in different ways and not all the templates fit all the cars at the same time. It was almost impossible."

The Wood Brothers were asked to turn all of the collective ideas into a car that would be submitted to NASCAR for approval.

"I've never been involved in one of these before and we didn't know how the process went," said Eddie Wood. "It was a much more detailed process than I ever imagined as far as what NASCAR required. They designated where to put the nose, the roof and the deck. It wasn't like you just built it like you wanted it. You've got to build it like they want it built.

"You don't want to build it and have to build it again. You wanted people to say this is the way they wanted it as it went along. It's kind of like building a house. When you get the walls up, come look at it. When you get the roof up, come look at it. When you get the plumbing in, come look at it. So it was kind of a stepped process that went pretty well.

"It was a group effort. Hopefully it yields the results that everyone wants. I feel good about it."

Compared to other projects submitted to NASCAR that took nearly a year for approval, Ford moved quickly through the process and that allowed teams to start building new cars last fall.

"The new car went pretty smoothly," Pemberton said. "We started with the Wood Brothers because it was easier to work with a single team. That way we didn't have these big committee meetings all the time. Big things run very slow, so it was easy to work with the Wood Brothers.

"We had and took input from the other Cup owners. The Roush group, they had some interest in it and they had some input. The same with Yates. It was all channeled through him and that was different than what has been done in the past. I've been involved with the Ford thing many different times and it was nice that it came from the manufacturer out instead of the teams."